"The past, the present and the future – 'The Day of The Doctor' had it all. For any fan of the new series, Steven Moffat's 75-minute epic – which takes in old faces, multiple time zones, one flirty monarch, weapons of mass destruction on Earth and scenes of mass destruction on Gallifrey – is pretty much everything you could wish for."

"I'm looking forward to watching this episode again from the beginning, as every time I looked down to scrawl a detail I missed something. Steven Moffat gave fans of the show a truly amazing gift by loading the episode full of 'remember that?' moments, and that was even before we got to the meat of the matter, a mind-bending, time-jumping extravaganza that had embedded in it a directive from the show's earliest episodes - real history."

"The main strength of the episode was the way in which the Time Lords had to navigate difficult moral issues – their contemplation of the possibility of genocide was heartrending and the idea that they could save Gallifrey by freezing it in time was breathlessly thrilling.

"Tantalisingly, we were also given a surprise debut from new Doctor Peter Capaldi, his eyes flashing before us, that hinted at trouble to come."

"There were superb performances all round. Current incumbent Matt Smith did his much-loved wacky schtick, while perennial favorite David Tennant brought back all the quips and mannerisms that made us love his Doctor so much. Added into the mix is the legendary John Hurt, whose new take on one of the true stalwarts of television brings class, intelligence and a whole new A-List dimension to the world of Doctor Who – a world that surely feels a bit more blessed after today."

"'The Day Of The Doctor' had a lot of fun with the past, and left quite a lot to explore for the future. And, as always, the show goes on: we've got just over a month until Doctor Who delivers yet another massive episode. If it lives up to the quality of this one? We might just be in for another treat, because 'The Day Of The Doctor' really was, even with one or two really minor quibbles, terrific. Really great fun, its own Five Doctors in its own way, and pulsating with comedy, ambition, and top to bottom entertainment. Happy birthday, Doctor..."

"For the first 50 years we knew him, the Doctor was running away from his home planet — first as a TARDIS-stealing criminal, then in exile, then running from his responsibilities to help govern there, and finally running away from the memory of having destroyed it. Now, at last, he's running home.

"For all we know, it may take him another 50 years to find it. Even so, this towering achievement of an episode — one designed to please fans and newcomers alike — shows why the Doctor is finding his way into ever more homes and hearts."

"As for the episode itself, 'The Day Of The Doctor' was typical of the way Doctor Who has regenerated during Moffat's time: a clever, chaotic, infuriating combination of nifty, knowing tiny detail and big, hollow, pompous bluster. Depending on how you feel about the series or sci-fi generally, the plot Moffat came up with was fantastically audacious/ingenious/ridiculous, or possibly all three."

"I won't remember much of how Steven Moffat, who wrote and produced an almost feature-length episode, managed to pull together the strands of a half-century of a fictional universe, as if the whole series made sense, before pushing it off in new directions at the end... Often [Doctor Who] didn't make much sense, and last night's story was as daftly implausible as the series has always been.

"Yet it clings, it sticks in the mind because the central ideas work like memes, like self-replicating alien intelligences."

"The Day of the Doctor was an impressive marshalling of Doctor Who' s rich history, indelible iconography, and grand tradition, buoyed by excellent performances. Epic and respectful, yet never slavish to the past and instead looking toward a future it just helped secure for another half-century."